No Strings Attached

As soon as Doflamingo had finished off the King, the black crystals all arrayed around the room, embedded into the furniture, the chains of the captive ponies and the walls themselves shattered, the remaining fragments fading into dust. The ponies previously attached to the walls fell to the ground and the ones chained to the throne were released, their bonds broken as the dead King’s magic dissipated. The ponies all looked upon Doflamingo in fright, the person in question prodding the King’s corpse with his foot. Doflamingo stopped poking the King and began to stomp on it instead, all of the ponies wincing and shaking in fear after each impact, the smile constantly on Doflamingo’s face only adding to their terror. Abruptly, he stopped and began to move towards the throne, the five mares in front of him scattering as he approached. He sat down on the throne, his form melting into it as if it had been made for him, the black crystal absorbing his body heat and amplifying it, giving the cold, hard throne the feeling of a comfortable chair. Doflamingo sighed in comfort, too preoccupied with settling into his new throne that he didn’t notice all of the ponies running out the doors until they were almost all out of the room.

“Hey, where are you going?! You could be a little more grateful that I saved all of you!” He yelled out after them, the ponies already long gone.

Doflamingo sighed. ‘And here I thought these ponies would be happy that I killed that bastard. Talk about ungrateful.’ He chuckled to himself, his whole situation a grand example of surrealism.

He was supposed to be a feared pirate and former Celestial Dragon, caring little for human life and doing whatever he pleased. Still, these weren’t humans, but sapient ponies and he found them to be adorable in a way. He certainly felt no urge to harm these ponies unless they deserved it in some way, so he began to tap his fingers on the throne and swing his feet, thinking of ways to rules his new empire. He chuckled again at his situation and sighed. ‘Forget it. This new life is so much better than my previous one.’ He thought of his family, his childhood and how it was all taken away from him. His whole goal in life was to destroy the world the Celestial Dragons had created, but here he was devoid of a purpose. He could try conquering this new world and uniting it all in under his rule, but what would be the point? Eventually he would die again, but to old age this time around as he doubted there was anything in this world that had the power to kill him. He reflected that at least he didn’t have to survive without any of the normal comforts the rich and powerful needed. After all, this empire was his now and he doubted any of the citizens could do anything to stop him.  While sitting around on his new throne, one of his bare feet suddenly made contact with a soft furry object, and Doflamingo looked down to the bottom of the throne.

Lying down, Doflamingo somehow having missed it earlier was another pony, a gash in its head slowly leaking vital fluid onto the crystal floor. He stared at the gash, before finally coming to the conclusion that he might have to do something about it as every other one of the ponies had vacated the room in haste.

He sighed; evidently he would have to do everything around here. Not to mention that he was starting to get soft around these blasted ponies.

“To think that an Emperor has to do the work of servants and butlers, now where the hell am I going to find a bandage around here?”

Doflamingo scanned the room from the comfort of his chair, until his eyes landed upon the body of Sombra, or rather the flowing red cape that was sprawled over the corpse.

“That’ll do.” Doflamingo muttered, lifting himself out of the throne and walking over towards the fallen King. He reached down and tore a strip of red fabric from the cape before giving the cooling body one last kick. He returned to the throne before fastening the bandage around the gash on the mare’s head, the red fabric stopping the flow of blood. Doflamingo sat back into his chair, his task complete and continued to think about the possible do’s and don’ts of ruling his new empire.

‘Too bad I can’t really take my anger out on any of them. It would certainly kill time if they came back with an angry mob to kill me.’ He began to laugh, deciding that being a completely different person from his past life would be an interesting change for himself. Being the good guy in this world might be more satisfying than he realizes.

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Sparkling Scroll opened her eyes, blinking her right rapidly to try to clear the dried blood from her vision. Her head really hurt, but she couldn’t remember what caused it to hurt so much, did she fall down? She shook her head, causing the pain to flare up, eliciting a wince from her. This did clear some of the fog from her mind however, and she could now see her surroundings much more vividly. She could see that she was still in the throne room; however all the other ponies appeared to be gone, the chains attached to the walls were empty. Her eyes glazed over the rest of the wide room before coming to a stop upon a black and red shape lying in the middle of the floor. She leaned forward slightly, raising herself up on her front hooves, her rump still planted on the floor, fearing that if she got up she would aggravate whatever was causing the pain in her head.

“AAAHHHHHH!”

She drew back quickly upon realizing that she was looking at the dead body of a pony, King Sombra no less, a pool of blood surrounding him. The momentum of her startled retreat caused her to topple over onto her back, the rear of her head smacking against two fleshy objects, her legs spread-eagled around her.

“Ow!”

She rubbed her head with a hoof, the hoof coming into contact with some form of fabric wrapped around her head. She traced the strange cloth with the hoof, jerking it back as it came into contacted with a wet section of the cloth, finding the source of her headache, a wound just above her right eye. The strange thing was, there was no-other pony in the room and the King was dead, so who…

Sparkling Scroll suddenly remembered all of the previous events that had happened in the Throne room, from the strange biped, the conversation it had with Sombra all the way to when it tortured and killed the King with its strange magic. She shuddered as she remembered the brutal act of violence, the biped genuinely amused as it destroyed the once-feared despot. What had happened to the biped, had it left to continue its reign of terror elsewhere, snatching up lone foals for a quick snack? Sparkling Scroll shuddered at this thought, the very idea of being in close proximity of the Monster sending a chill up her spine. A chill that was countered by the warmth spreading through her back through the two objects she was resting against, two, long fleshy objects much like…

Two warm bipedal legs.

Sparkling Scroll ever-so-slowly tilted her head back, praying that when she looked up it would not be what she thought it was. She traced the two long white trunks up to a piece of blue fabric, continuing onwards towards a white cloth garment before her vision stopped, her eyes looking at a face with an almost manic grin plastered onto its face with sunglasses covering its eyes.

“Oh? Awake are we?” Questioned the biped as it continued to smile at Sparkling Scroll its mouth filled with rows of teeth.

Sparkling Scroll once again slipped into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, her head once again impacting with the legs of the biped.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Doflamingo kept staring at the mare, the pony in question having passed out; no doubt because of his unusual appearance coupled together with what she saw him do to the former king.

“Great,” grumbled Doflamingo, nudging the unconscious mare with his foot, causing her to roll over, returning her to a more decent position, the evidence of its gender now less noticeable from before from when she was on her back.

“Hmm, I should get something to eat. I haven’t eaten yet.” lamented Doflamingo, rising from his chair, stepping over the prone form of the mare before striding out the main door, seeking a source of nourishment.

“There’s got to be something to eat around here somewhere. If I don’t find something soon, I’ll have to start taking my anger out on my new palace.”

After a long time of food-less searching, Doflamingo stumbled upon the palace kitchens, large Crystal stoves accompanied by Crystal benches covered with spoons made out of, spoiler alert, Crystal.

“If my entire palace is made out of crystals, then I’ll have to make sure to prevent any thieves from coming in here and chiseling away at the walls for a quick beli, that is, unless of course these ponies’ notions of value and economy are the same as ours.”

Doflamingo was starting to get sick of all the crystal, his only consolation being that at least the ponies weren’t made out of the shining substance, because that would just be redundant and stupid.

“Ah-ha!” Doflamingo exclaimed as he noticed a door with the label ‘Pantry’ on it, no doubt this would be where the ponies kept the goods. He rushed over towards the door, flinging open the barrier with much enthusiasm. Gazing into the depths of the pantry his smile spread across his face at the sight before him.

“AH, FINALLY!”

The pantry was filled with various foods, from fruits to vegetables, to dairy and bread products. While there was unfortunately no meat present, which made sense since his new subjects were herbivores, he could make do with everything else..

“fufufu, It’s been a while since I’ve had to prepare my own food. ” said Doflamingo as he carefully selected the ingredients for his much deserved meal.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sparkling awoke to the sound of munching and the clang of utensils being used. She picked herself off the floor, the pain in her head having diminished to a dull throb, pulsing in time with her heart. She swiveled around to face the noise, the monstrous biped from before was sitting right behind her, a plate filled with a variety of foods resting on its right leg as it continued to apply a fork to pick at the food to eat. The biped stopped the consumption of its meal and looked right at her, at least she thought it was looking at her. She couldn’t be sure because of the shades it wore. Nevertheless, it caused her body to freeze and her mind to blank as its gaze focused on her.

“Oh, you’re up again,” the biped observed, casually plopping a piece of lettuce into its mouth, chewing the morsel before continuing, “listen, next time you faint, do you think you could do it over in the corner over there,” the biped gestured over towards a corner at the back of the room, “having to step over you every time I want to move is really becoming quite a chore.”

Sparkling was speechless; the biped continued its rant.

“I mean, I know I’m quite a sight to behold,” the biped looked down at itself, large spots of blood still prevalent on its garments, “but really, fainting? I’m not going to start killing you ponies unless you’re foolish enough to attack me like King Moron over there,” Sparkling glanced at the corpse before turning back round, “but nevertheless, I am not going to be like your previous ruler, despite the display of violence I just demonstrated to you ponies. Would you like something to eat?”

The sudden change of subject snapped Sparkling out of her daze and she noticed that the biped was holding out its plate of food to her with one of its claws, evidently having washed Sombra’s blood off of it earlier.

“N-n-no than-k yo-u,” she stammered, the biped shrugging and picked up a loaf of bread and took a bite from it.

“Suit yourself; means more for me anyway,” The biped continued to eat, although Sparkling had a feeling that it was still watching her through its shades.

“So, do you have a job or do were just an unfortunate civilian who ended being a slave until you were freed from your life of servitude by a supposed monster that killed your ruler?” the biped’s grin grew, displaying all of its teeth again.

“No, I worked as the King’s assistant before…” She once again glanced at Sombra “well, before you came.”

“Assistant you say?” The biped replied, rubbing its chin in thought with a claw “Tell you what, go home for the day, if you come back in the morning I’ll give you your old job back, except this time without any of the slavery.”

Sparkling was shocked, did this biped just offer her a job, could she really work for a creature that barely an hour ago had tortured and killed the most feared pony in the empire with strange magic?

“I guess I could Mister?” Sparkling was beginning to build up the confidence needed to converse with the creature.

“fufufu, my name is Donquixote Doflamingo; since you’ll be working for me as my assistant I don’t expect you to call me Emperor all the time.”

“Okay… Doflamingo,” Sparkling felt weird saying the name, having expected the creature be named something more… evil. His name was long, like it was a royal name, but part of it referring to him as a flamingo kind of made it funny when trying to compare him to one. After all, she thought, that coat of pink feathers he’s wearing kind of suits his name. Actually, when she thought about it, he didn’t really seem that malicious towards her at all, he was certainly nicer than her old Boss, Sombra. The memory of Doflamingo happily fighting, torturing and killing the king came back to Sparkling’s mind, but she reasoned that he would only be like that if somepony was foalish enough to actually fight him for any reason. Sparkling began to exit the Throne Room before realizing that she didn’t remember where she lived.

“Um, Doflamingo, Sir?” She questioned, turning once again to face the new Emperor.

“Yes my little assistant, what can your Emperor do for you?” Doflamingo chuckled, obviously enjoying his new title.

“I don’t really remember where I live, everything before today is a little fuzzy.”

Doflamingo leaned back into his throne, deep in thought.

“I’m sure that this place has plenty of bedrooms, just pick one and you can have it until your head feels a little better.”

“Thank you Sir,” she replied, surprised by Doflamingo’s generosity before she left the throne room in search of a bed.

Doflamingo watched the mare disappear, only to realize that he had forgotten to ask her name.

“Hmph, she’ll be back in the morning, I can just ask her then,” he muttered out loud before looking towards the ex-king “As for you dear Sir, I have the perfect idea.” he said as he once again left the Throne room, heading towards the kitchen.

“I’ll use a nice, sharp knife this time. I don’t feel like wasting my powers on him anymore.”

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Northern Wastes

Hours later

“Shining come on, we have to make it to the Crystal Empire as soon as possible!”

Shining Armor mimicked his wife under his breath as he continued to trudge through the snow after Cadence, him and the four Royal Guard Pegasi assigned to accompany the guard Captain and his wife struggling to keep up with the pink alicorn in the snowy blizzard.  Cadence seemed filled with a desperate energy, and she had been like this ever since Princess Celestia had announced that she felt the presence of the Crystal Empire once again.

“SHINING!” He stopped; his wife’s commanding voice ringing out from the front, piercing through the noise of the blizzard. He lifted his head, cloaked under a dull brown hood so to protect his head from the snow and spotted Cadence, the Alicorn looking at him sternly from under her own pink hood

“We have to hurry up, with our chariot grounded, Sombra could have already arrived before us, who knows what evils he is subjecting the poor Crystal ponies too!”

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Crystal Empire

“Ahhhhhh,” Doflamingo moaned in pleasure as he dug his feet into his new rug. After removing his shoes, he could feel the warm material providing a comfortable buffer between his feet and the floor. Who knew that pony fur could be so nice and soft? The Sombra rug sat at the foot of his throne, the red cape having been removed and thrown aside to be washed later and used as a fancy napkin for future meals. The silver crown and the silver armor were piled up in a back corner, Doflamingo planning to have them smelted down later. He had disposed of the rest of Sombra down a toilet, the hole seemingly going on forever into the ground, the inky blackness swallowing up the skinless corpse.

He glanced down at the rug, his feet resting on what the pony equivalent of shoulders were, withers he believed they were called. With his feet warmed by his new furniture and the crystal throne bathing him in warmth he drifted happily off into slumber, his dreams filled with fire and chaos, causing him to smile in his sleep, awaiting the coming day.